Playable code of Bruce Lee on Xbox was on display in France for the first time earlier this week, as we spoke with the senior producer, Jonathan Eubanks, who outlined his multiformat vision
15:40 Hard. As. Nails. Bruce Lee was never the sort of person whose pint you\'d want to spill, and his ascetic, life-long dedication to the study of martial arts will be remembered for years to come. It\'s been a long time since we\'ve seen a Bruce Lee videogame, but Vivendi Universal has finally taken the plunge, bringing the legendary fighter onto all major consoles formats in the not-too-distant future. Bruce Lee on Xbox is the first title to see the light of day; the game was displayed for the very first time in France on Tuesday.
Boasting stunning graphical qualities, the game provides a vivid, striking recreation of Lee, as he fights his way through a traditional Japanese setting, punching the crap out of ceaseless torrents of enemies that stand in his way. Present at the event was senior producer of the title, Jonathan Eubanks, who demonstrated the title for us, before discussing his elaborate vision in detail. Here\'s the full transcript:
What\'s the story behind the game? Is it based on any of his movies?
Eubanks - No, it doesn\'t do any of that. We can\'t do anything that was in the movies because we don\'t have the licence for that. What Universal owns is the licence to the image of Bruce Lee, so we can use him in any setting we want to, whereas those with the movie licence can\'t do that at all. We\'re in a good position.
Bruce Lee\'s father has been kidnapped and at the same a dragon relic has stolen - Bruce must get this back and his father. The game is held together by cinematics that direct the storyline, with about 50 in-game cinematics and 60 streaming cinematics, and within those there are over 700 lines of dialogue and in the game there are over 1500 lines of dialogue.
With this game we spared no graphic quality - as you can see, it has everything in terms of look and feel.
How does the fight system work. If there are several people around you can you lock onto one of them?
Eubanks - Yes. If you use the left trigger you can lock onto the nearest enemy and then if somebody goes behind you [demonstrates hitting someone behind Lee, using right analogue stick] you can hit them. The fight system is direction based.
What weapons are available?
Eubanks - In this game, only the nunchukas - that\'s not because we couldn\'t do it; it\'s because of some of the design disputes we had. Originally the game went in another direction that I didn\'t like, and as a result we had to change it and go back to what we were trying to do. In order to get the game out in time, we weren\'t able to implement additional weapons.
In the future games, Bruce will only be able to use the weapons he used in the movies: the long bow-staff; throwing wood darts. Also, this will be the only Bruce game that you ever see where he fights a female character, because of the wishes of his estate. I do agree with it, and the only reason it made it into this version was that we made that the argument that our core gamers expect to be able to fight women characters.
Have you encountered any other problems regarding the license?
Eubanks - He can\'t swear, obviously, and we won\'t have that in the game anyway. Also, there\'s no blood.
Which consoles is Bruce Lee going to appear on?
Eubanks - I\'m gonna have it everywhere. Next year it will be on PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, GBA: it\'ll be everywhere - every platform. Also, I\'m gonna make two different types of game; I\'m gonna have two games going simultaneously - that\'s my hope and my vision. What I want is one that is purely an arena fighter, and another that is an adventure game.
An arena fighter like Tekken of VF 4?
Eubanks - Right. I want to have to have one like that, and the other one - the adventure game - will be like [the Xbox version] but less arcadey and more realistic. If you see here, he\'s on fire - if you hit the black button it gives him some dragon power. The adventure game will be ultra-realsitic: he\'ll do things like climbing poles and ropes, fighting and sneaking - some of the things you\'ll see in Metal Gear Solid 2. The story will be different in terms of how it\'s conveyed in the game experience.
Have you started work on the arena fighting game?
Eubanks - Not yet - I\'m laying the design out right now and trying to work out some details. However, I have pretty much started the next PS2 version.
Will it be the same as the current Xbox version?
Eubanks - No; a separate game by a separate developer. This one is very cosmetic, very glossy - the other one will be, like I said, ultra-realistic. This is realistic, but has some unrealistic elements.
Is this because the PS2 simply cannot handle some of the things you\'re doing with Xbox?
Eubanks - Right. [With the PS2 version] I\'m really gonna be focused on making a super, great game without being so much concerned with the deep graphic quality people expect to see on the Xbox. For the Xbox, it was the first time and we wanted to get the reflection mapping, bump mapping and all that kind of stuff. It\'s a good game. It really is a solid, good game, but for the next one I\'m gonna go even deeper.
What about the GameCube version?
Eubanks - I plan on making the game so you won\'t see any changes: what you see on PS2 is what you see on GameCube, and what you see on Xbox is what you see on GameCube - I won\'t change anything. That\'s how people will have to take it. If there\'s stuff that is easy to do on a particular console, then I\'ll make that change, but for the most part I intend on accommodating the game on all platforms. If I can do it, it\'ll be everywhere.
And on the GBA?
Eubanks - That\'s kind of tricky. Even though I\'m very much inclined to do it on GBA, I\'m concerned about being able to see it. If this is on GBA, is it going to look good? I want to avoid too much negative criticism, and I think if the game comes on GBA then I\'m going to be open to that. I don\'t like the dark screen.
Why make a game about Bruce Lee in the first place?
Eubanks - I\'m a Bruce Lee fanatic, have been all my life. If you knew my family, they\'d tell you I was born to do just this - if there was no God, he would have been mine. When I came to Universal it was like: "What? Bruce Lee? I\'ll quit whatever I\'m doing to do this."
What fighting style have you used?
Eubanks - It\'s very authentic - called jeet-kune-do: that means the way of the intercepting fist, which Bruce invented. It was designed to make martial arts economical. In this game, I took a chance by copying that, as it\'s not always glamorous. In other fight games they do all these crazy things that defy the laws of gravity, whereas his moves are very real.
Is the Xbox version the only one we\'ll see released this year?
Eubanks - The Xbox is the only version that will appear this year. There\'s a possibility of the GBA, but I\'m trying to cancel it. It depends - if I can get something that looks really good, I\'ll go with it. I just don\'t like the dark screen. If it was backlit it would be great - I just don\'t want to put it out there and risk it.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com
